Civility also requires relearning how to disagree without being disagreeable; understanding, as President [Kennedy] said, that “civility is not a sign of weakness.” Now, I am the first to confess I am not always right. Michelle will testify to that. (Laughter.) But surely you can question my policies without questioning my faith, or, for that matter, my citizenship. (Laughter and applause.)

Challenging each other’s ideas can renew our democracy. But when we challenge each other’s motives, it becomes harder to see what we hold in common. We forget that we share at some deep level the same dreams — even when we don’t share the same plans on how to fulfill them.

He also employed the civility card to promote the stalled health care bill and other favorite liberal causes:

We may disagree about the best way to reform our health care system, but surely we can agree that no one ought to go broke when they get sick in the richest nation on Earth. We can take different approaches to ending inequality, but surely we can agree on the need to lift our children out of ignorance; to lift our neighbors from poverty. We may disagree about gay marriage, but surely we can agree that it is unconscionable to target gays and lesbians for who they are — whether it’s here in the United States or, as Hillary mentioned, more extremely in odious laws that are being proposed most recently in Uganda.

That’s all well and good, but why did I get the feeling that this lack of civility of which he speaks, was aimed not so much at the Democrats but at Republicans?

This would have been a good time, (since he was on the subject of civility), to chastise people who call tea partiers “tea-baggers”, and other abhorrent terms, but then, he would be chastising himself, and the people close to him, and the Democratic party’s cable news arm, MSNBC. So we didn’t hear anything about that.

xbradtc – So let me get this straight – if you do happen to be working but basically working poor and you fall sick and can’t pay for it, it would be your fault. Ditto with those who are now unemployed because of the policies your bunch supported over the last few decades. Right? Listen up, thickhead, if you had some sort of universal healthcare at least one of the above types of persons would be paying for it – through the taxation system! But of course, you being the fatheaded ideological desert that you are would be opposed to that, wouldn’t you!

Grow up, Mal. Health care is not a right. Nobody owes you health care – not doctors, not pharmacists, and not rich people. Also please note that health care does not equal health insurance. And opposition to Obamacare doesn’t necessarily equate to opposition to health care reform.

We’ve enjoyed the benefits of ready access to care and rapidly advancing medical technology without having to scrap the entire system. There are many other options for reform that would receive more bipartisan support – especially those in the opposite direction of universal health care.

*Waits for Mal to bring up the old saws about live birth rates and life expectancy.*

those who are now unemployed because of the policies your bunch supported over the last few decades.

Weapons-grade stupid. You’ve come back so many times after promising to leave – what’s the matter, won’t anybody Down Under entertain your scintillating wit? Is that why we get to enjoy these little gems?

Mal,
Many Americans have a deep seated revulsion to the idea of having the necessities of life “provided to them” by the government.
The ambitous don’t want it, because they know they can do better for themselves than what government will let them have.
The independent don’t want it, because they know that if the government can give it, the government can also take it away.
Those who truly care about posterity don’t want it, because they don’t want tomorrow enslaved to provide mediocrity to today.
The realists don’t want it, because they know that such as system will breed competitiveness and innovation out of the system.
The strict constructionists don’t want it because they know such things are not the government’s to “provide”, and will resist the usurpation of their power by people who only seek to consolidate their own.